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Heroism is no more than a chapter in a tale of submission

We saw one of my kid's oldest friends today, when we stopped for coffee on the way back from picking up the child with his "enormous" (that he was afraid wouldn't fit in a regular car) gift for his girlfriend. I guess he's not great with spacial perception stuff. Ah well. So, Jesse's friend left a little over a year ago to join the Navy. He's been in school all this time, and when he gets back from Christmas break, he'll be put to use as a medic.

Jesse laughed when he heard this. "That's, like, the exact opposite of what you went in for." His friend aspired to be an assassin, special forces training, etc., etc., etc.

"That's what I thought, too," he said. "At first."

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Loki ate an entire stack of pizzelles, right off the table.

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Lori and Gordon came by today, for the annual pizzelle session. Gordon and I ran off to do the liquor shopping for the xmas festivities, and Linda and Lori started the pizzelle production. When we got back (we had to hit two liquor stores, because the Devon store is too snooty to carry anisette) , they were taking a break. Many cookies had been sacrificed to the dog-gods, and Donna arrived just as we were getting home. The three musketeers went off to the sun-room to do the second batch of cookies and Linda suddenly yelled, "Something's wrong with the creek!"

And there was. Where, a few minutes earlier the stream had been running fast and clear, swollen with rainwater, it was now white and frothy.

I went out and checked it out.

Yes, it looks like skim milk.

We decided to report it, so that began the search through the phone books. Fifteen minutes later, we abandoned the phone book, which no longer contains useful information (unless you want escort services), and began googling. We decided to call the Department of Environmental Protection (rather than the EPA), and after some negotiating of the voicemail system, got to leave a voicemail.

Surprisingly, we got a call back within 10 minutes. He was very pleased to talk with me. I described the scene, and he very apologetically said that what with the thunderstorm coming and it being dark now and all, they wouldn't be able get out tonight, but they'd definitely be out tomorrow to test the soil and stuff. He got especially excited that I had taken pictures - "Anything to help us build a case!" - and I have emailed them to him. Apparently the nearby shopping strip has some "illegal crossconnects" going directly into our stream, and they are working on building a case against them.

So, folks, spills like this ARE considered emergencies by DEP standards, and if you see something, call it in.